


The Price

by Woozletania



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:34:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woozletania/pseuds/Woozletania
Summary: After the Infinity War, Rocket has found a way to bring his friends back from the dead.  Shame about the price.Note: This is a stand-alone AU work and is not part of the Sanctuary or "There's a raccoon in my tower" timeline.





	The Price

Peter woke with a start, and almost before his eyes blinked awake his hand reached out. Gamora.

And she was there, warm and strong on her side of the bed, as awake and wide-eyed as he was. “Peter.” Her right hand strayed to her opposite shoulder. “This...this isn't right. The last thing I remember...”

“I know,” Star-Lord said. “Thanos.”

For a moment he sat in bed, gathering his thoughts. It was too real. It hadn't been a dream, it'd really happened. Meeting Thor, meeting Stark and Strange and the spider guy, fighting Thanos. Learning that the Mad Titan killed Gamora, and then seeing Mantis and Drax crumble away to dust. And remembering, somehow, that he crumbled too. His last words had been “Oh, man...” as he realized that they'd lost, and that he'd contributed more than most to their failure.

And yet here they sat, awake and healthy. Something was going on. Gamora slid out of bed on the side opposite him, each pulling on their clothes with unseemly haste. They had to get to the bottom of this.

A knock on the door, and when Peter yanked it open, Nebula. Unlike them she looked the worse for wear, her cybernetics and skin alike marred by a recent battle. “Good,” she said before Peter could open his mouth. “Come. He doesn't have much time.”

“Who doesn't? What's going on?” In the hallway they were joined by Mantis, Drax and Groot, the latter almost incredibly not bent over this Defender game. He looked as worried as they did.

“I am Groot.” 

“I know. Where's Rocket?”

Then they saw him, as they entered the common area at the back of the Benatar. Rocket, less than three feet tall, ringtailed and furry...and naked. Peter hadn't seen him naked since the Kyln. He always kept covered up to conceal the scars on his back and who knew what other horrible marks the uncaring researchers had left on his little body when they made him. He thought of himself as a monster, now less than he used to, but even now he wouldn't accept that he looked the way he was supposed to look. Rocket was, and always had been a mangled little thing in his own mind. No amount of talking could work that out of him.

He stood facing away, staring out through the many-paned rear window, and Peter blinked as he saw Rocket's back. No scars! And the fur had a glossy, almost metallic sheen he'd never seen before. Rocket turned. His eyes were glowing.

“Pete. Gamora. Drax, Mantis...Groot.” He stepped forward and with a soft, almost tentative motion reached out and took Groot's hands. “You're back. He kept his word.” He blinked as though expecting tears, but none welled from his eyes. Even his face had a peculiar, subtly faceted, almost metallic look to it now, his brown eyes like gemstones in their sockets.

“What are you talking about, Rock? Who kept his word?” Peter reached out and Rocket, staring lovingly at Groot, didn't pull away in time. Star-Lord discovered why the raccoon had so gently taken his son's hands. As his own came down on Rocket's shoulder the soft, glossy fur went straight into his flesh like needles.

“Shit! Rocket, what...ow.” Peter yanked his hand away, blood dripping down his wrist. Rocket's impervious fur shed the red, which drained down his chest and dripped off without leaving even a stain.

“Sorry Pete. I'm still getting used to it.”

Even his voice sounded different. It was as though Peter heard it in his head now, not in his ears. “Pete. Give me your hand.”

Star-Lord hesitantly held out his bloody hand and Rocket looked up at it. His gemstone eyes flashed and just like that the pain was gone. So was the blood. There was no sign he'd been stabbed by Rocket's fur at all.

“Okay, that worked,” Rocket said. “Wasn't sure it would.”

“Rocket, what...”

“Groot,” Rocket said, looking into his son's eyes. “I'm sorry I couldn't get your dad back. I asked, but he's been dead too long.”

“I am Groot.” _But you're my dad, Rocket._

“Sorta. And I wish I could stay here, and be your dad, but I can't. I gotta go soon. I won't be coming back.”

Everyone spoke at once except Nebula. The words were largely the same. “Where are you going? Why? What happened?” Rocket was already turning to Gamora's sister.

“Nebula. You stayed with me, through it all. Thank you. I don't know if I could have...here, just give me your hands.”

'Wait,” Gamora said, “What are you going to do?”

But it was too late. As Nebula took the little raccoon's hands his eyes glowed, and this time a white glow formed around Nebula. There was a sound as of metal bending, a pop, and a low groan of pain, but as the light cleared she still stood there. Different. Most of her cybernetics were gone, replaced by healthy blue skin. One eye and one hand remained robotic, but where she'd been ninety percent metal a moment before she was perhaps that much living flesh now. Nebula shifted on her feet, an astonished expression on her face as she got used to being flesh once more.

Rocket took a deep breath and stepped back. “That's all I can do. I don't know enough yet to fix the rest, I'm sorry. Maybe if we meet again someday...” He looked up and if he'd still been able to cry he would. But Peter was increasingly sure that as much as Nebula had just changed, Rocket had changed more between their last meeting and now. Whatever he was now, tears were impossible.

“I wish I could stay.” Rocket turned toward the window. “But this was the deal. I had to bring you back. The others said there might be a way using the Stones, but I knew a way that'd work for sure. I just had to trade something for your lives.”

“What did you trade, Rocket?” Peter stepped toward his friend, but he didn't need to be told not to touch. The pain was too fresh to forget. Rocket just shook his head. Gamora looked across at Nebula, but she too was silent. Peter shot Mantis a look.

“I cannot read him,” the empath said. “He is beyond us now.”

“Drax.” Rocket turned and almost bowed to the giant, a motion Peter wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it. “Thanks for being my friend. I'll remember the jokes, the good times. And all of you, take care of Groot. All of you...”

He turned to face them. “All of you, thanks. You gave me more of a life than I ever thought I'd have. And I'd stay if I could. But a deal's a deal.”

He turned toward the window, slow, but inexorable, like a glacier grinding its way along. Peter knew no force at their command could slow or stop him now. Except maybe words.

“Rocket, please. Tell us what happened. And you can't go. There's just the ship. What are you going to do, jump out the lock in a space suit?”

“I don't need a suit any more, Pete.” He was beginning to glow. “Mine is the Power Cosmic.” There was a flash, and Rocket was gone; for just a moment Peter blinked past the tears of overloaded eyes and saw a star-bright dot diminishing against the starfield. In an instant it was gone.

Rocket went superluminal once he'd reached a safe distance from the Benatar. Tearing a hole in space to get somewhere fast was easy now, like ripping thin cloth. It was one of his new powers that he enjoyed the most. Fast travel, seeing the universe. Shame about the price.

Minutes later and a galaxy away he emerged once again from hyperspace. The construct before him was awe-inspiring, like nothing else in the universe: Taa II, a spacecraft, homeworld, whatever you cared to call it, loomed larger than a solar system. And at its closest point, standing in naked vacuum on a pier stretched out from the hull, a figure in keeping with the structure. A colossal figure in armor, ten times as tall as a man. His height might vary; sometimes he was smaller, sometimes vastly larger. Rocket knew now that what he saw was just a manifestation. It was no mere fleshy creature in that purple armor, but pure energy. His own powers, vast though they now were, were but a speck compared to the god before him.

 **“Herald,”** thundered the great figure. **_“I hunger.”_**

“I know, my master,” Rocket said. “I will find you a world. Uninhabited if I can.”

 **“You will find me a world,”** thundered the figure. **“And more worlds, at need. Or else the deal will be revoked.”**

“I understand, master.” And Rocket, whose life had been defined by fleeing 'masters', who had spent all his short years trying to be just himself, to just be free, turned and began to scan for a world to feed his master. He had a master now. That was the deal. He had duties now. Responsibilities. 

He had saved them, saved his friends. All it cost him was everything.


End file.
